As the awareness and support for PHEVs in the US has grown, we re taking that message internationally. (Our foreign language translations of our Home,

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, Sep 2, 2007

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As the awareness and support for PHEVs in the US
has grown, we're taking that message
internationally. (Our foreign language
translations of our Home, Carmakers and Vehicles"
pages are getting attention -- you can get to
them by clicking on the Japanese, German and
Swedish, Spanish French flags on the home page.)

Below is a "leak" about a Toyota/Electricite de
France announcement expected next week, and a
description of our ambitious hope to get a PHEV
converted in Australia to gain center stage at a
key global warming event in Bali in December.

TOYOTA/ELECTRICITE DE FRANCE AND PHEVs

This early story arrived early this weekend. It's
of great significance in Europe, and it confirms
our sense that Toyota is looking at PHEVs as a
global strategy. (In the US, we've seen estimates
that up to 75% of drivers have access to a plug.)

Toyota and EDF are teaming up to develop
recharging points for plug-in hybrid electric
cars in a key step forward for the emerging vehicle technology.

The Japanese carmaker and French utility are due
next week to announce an agreement to develop
electricity infrastructure to serve the plug-in
cars Toyota plans to roll out in a few years'
time. Only a few cities, London among them, have recharging points.

The step is important as the future commercial
viability of plug-ins will depend in large part
on wide availability of recharging points.

EDF's deal with Toyota is expected to cover
France initially but could be extended to other
countries. The group also owns utility companies
in Germany, Italy and the UK. Having adequate
electricity infrastructure for the cars is
important in Europe, where more motorists park on
city streets overnight than in the US.
<snip>

AN INTERNATIONAL PHEV CHALLENGE:
PUT PHEVS IN CENTER OF GLOBAL WARMING STRATEGIC DISCUSSIONS

We faced some skepticism when we announced we
would fly a PHEV to Washington DC in May 2006 to
show to Senators and Representatives. But with
the help of Set America Free, with costs of under
$25,000 (raised in large part from small
contributions from CalCars-News subscribers), our
quick trip significantly advanced our goals of
putting PHEVs on government agendas. (See http://www.calcars.org/phevs-in-dc.html for the photos.)

We have a similar opportunity this December, when
representatives of 180 nations plus many NGOs
(non-governmental organizations) hold the
ten-year followup event to the Kyoto Conference
to charts future strategies for addressing the
climate crisis. The official event is the
"Conference of Parties COP-13 UN Framework on
Climate Change Summit" Dec. 3-14 Nusa Dua, Bali,
Indonesia. (The second week is the conference of ministers.) Here's the URL:http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_13/items/4049.php
For an indication of the media impact of the event:http://researchandmedia.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=701094:BlogPost:8935

We think the value of having a low-carbon (under
110 gram/kilometer) PHEV at the conference could
be substantial: we could gain enormous interest
from the media throngs, officials and NGOs. This
could help to definitively establish the PHEV as
a leading solution to CO2 reduction in
transportation. (This awareness is currently not
nearly as widespread as the understanding of its
energy independence benefits, in the U.S.
However, leading climate scientists like James
Hansen are fans, the EPRI-NRDC study quantified
the benefits, and climate activists and advocates
are increasingly acknowledging the strategy.)

At a time when there are over 60 PHEV Priuses in
North America and a scattering in Europe, we
don't need to bring a car from the U.S. Since
Priuses are scarce in Indonesia, our game-plan is
to complete a high-visibility Prius conversion in
Australia or perhaps New Zealand. (The growing
awareness in both places about climate crisis
provides an ideal environment to promote PHEVs.)
If we can get this project going, we will decide
closer to December if the conversion will be done
by an after-market company or our EAA-PHEV Open
Source project. We will then ship the car to
Bali, displaying it at the conference. Then the
car will return to AU/NZ to help promote PHEVs.

If you like the idea and live in AU/NZ, please
don't write us to say you want it to be your car!
Over time, we have received many emails from
individuals there who want PHEVs -- finding an
individual or institutional car owner will be easy.

The first step is to get local coordinators. We
know we have many AU and NZ subscribers to
CalCars-News and our website gets substantial
traffic from these countries. If one or two
people step forward to organize an effort, we can
provide an umbrella for a working group of
individuals, organizations, companies,
foundations, government agencies, etc. to make
this happen -- including raising about $50,000
from local or non-local sources -- to do the event right.